BLOG BOX

If you’ve ever thought of making a photo book, but time has got the better of you – never fear! We’ve got some top tips from our friend Marie over at Organisemyphotos.co.uk, who has helped some of our customers create amazing photo books…over to you, Marie! ”Taking photos in today’s modern world of many devices and gadgets couldn’t be easier and with everything being digital it’s easy to take 3-4 pictures of exactly the same pose or view just to be sure you get the best possible picture. Yet, how much time do we have to then spend managing those hundreds of pictures taken on a single trip or holiday – there’s the sorting out, deleting duplicates, storing them somewhere safe and then actually showcasing our favourite ones to friends and family…..this is where photo books become the perfect solution. The only issue for many of us is finding the time to actually create a great book! I love to take photos, in fact I take hundreds myself so I know how time consuming it can be to look after and treasure them. I also love to do all the organising and creating of photo books too, which is when I started creating books for family and then friends of family. I used to work for the Travel Industry, selecting hotels and destinations for holiday brochures so I have a good eye for detail and what looks good. I’m very conscious that photobooks are very personal – confidentiality and care of your photos are extremely important to me as well as the care taken in creating your photobook. Examples of some of the photo books Marie has created for customers Every customer and photo book is individual but there are some general steps I follow when creating photo books, which are as follows: Firstly I establish whether my customer would like me to design the whole book i.e. I propose the type of book, the colours, the font etc etc. or does my customer know all this detail and advise me in advance. I find many customers have some ideas and prefer to discuss options with me. – Customers also indicate how they’d like their photos presented, e.g. roughly how many photos per page, any templates they do/don’t like and how many pages they want their total book size. Once this is established I can then provide a quote. – The customer then needs to send me the photos. If these are hard copy prints (often the case when customers decide they want to do something with all their older photos) these are simply posted to me via recorded delivery and I will return them in the same way once I have scanned them. If the photos are digital then customers can download them to me or can post them to me on a USB stick. I always discuss this with customers to see what works best. – Dependent on the type of book being created and any captions

A few weeks ago, a tweet came through to the PhotoBox account that intrigued us… I covered my wall in 252 iconic football photos and made a video to document it. Thanks @PhotoBox. https://t.co/6uTXOyliWP — Alex Emery – YouTube (@AlexEmeryYT) May 29, 2015 Alex had decorated an entire wall of photos, using PhotoBox prints and wanted to share it with us – but these weren’t just any photos, these were the 250 most iconic moments in football. We asked Alex to explain more about the project, and we thought we’d share his video as well…over to you, Alex! ”Photography is often under appreciated; I believe there is so much power in the ability to capture a single moment forever. A few months ago I came up with the idea to design my own wallpaper made up of individual photographs, something that I knew would be 100% unique. I’m a Reading FC fan and have seen my club battle in the Championship and struggle in the Premier League, so having a constant reminder of Mikele Leigertwood surfing on a sea of supporters would make losing away to Sheffield Wednesday that little bit easier. In the history of the game there have been thousands of iconic moments, so I knew choosing my final 252 would be a tough process but luckily my Facebook friends were a great help. The wall is covered in a range of different moments, from Bobby Moore lifting the World Cup for England to Lionel Messi’s debut, but the beauty lies in the fact that every photograph tells its own individual story. ”

Dad’s are unique – just like works of art. That’s what we think anyway, and we wanted to come up with a special way to show Dads just how much they mean to their loved ones. We came up with a plan – for one night only, we would host an exclusive exhibition at the prestigious National Portrait Gallery in London, where the Dads of the nation would be hung alongside the likes of David Beckham, Kate Middleton and the Queen. To find Dads worthy of the honour, we asked PhotoBox fans on social media to share photos of the Dad in their life with us. There were 3 categories – ‘Dad Loves…’, ‘Fun with Dad’ and ‘Favourite photo of Dad’. The first two categories were judged by journalists from the Guardian and the Telegraph, while the final category was judged by hundreds of PhotoBox employees and from our friends at our sister brands Moonpig & Sticky9, everyone had 3 votes each to use wisely. So we had our winners – what next? Oh not much…we just had to print and create an exhibition in 4 days, no big deal. On Wednesday 10th June, we arrived at the gallery just as the final tourists were leaving for the day, and we watched as it was turned into our very own Dad Gallery – read on to find out more from the winners and see how it turned out on the night… The entrance to the National Portrait Gallery, plus the view inside the gallery Our winning customers… Winners Elysia and Josh (who together, make up Ellie and Josh photography) travelled down from Buxton for the event, and were extremely excited to see their photo ‘Oscar and Josh’ in our Dad Gallery. The story behind the photo made our hearts melt as well… ‘’Hi I’m Oscar, and this is Josh (he’s the big one) and he has the biggest heart of anyone I know. Even though he’s not my biological Dad, he has always treated me like his own Son. He looks after me whilst my Mum goes to work (she’s a wedding photographer, something she started doing when I was born- she says I am her mini muse!) He met my Mum when they were both at school and she says that if I grow into half the man that Josh is that she’ll be real proud. Josh loves lots of things, he loves my mum and he loves climbing, star wars, cups of tea and loads of other stuff I think is boring… but he says the thing that he loves most in the entire world is ME! :D’’ Customer Kathryn Giornail with her Dad’s portrait – ‘1950s Italian in London’ Kathryn’s portrait just screamed ‘cool’ to all of the PhotoBox team, and was one of the most commented on photos during the voting process. Kathryn’s description of the photo made us love it even more… ”My fab dad – over from Italy and hanging out in the Italian

Last week, we showed you how use your old, printed photos of your Dad to create a photo book that he’ll love. This week, we wanted to create a gift that’s a bit more ‘look-at-me’ that Dad can hang on his wall. Read on to find out our tips on making a collage canvas for Father’s Day.. Father’s Day Collage Canvas What you’ll need A selection of photos, old (printed) & new (digital) A DSLR or digital camera – a smartphone with a high quality camera will also work too Access to a computer or laptop Step 1: Pick out a mix of 3-5 of your favourite old photos and newer digital ones. You could choose a theme for the canvas before you start creating – we had lots of photos of trips to the beach, and used 2 older photos & one Instagram shot to show this off. Lay out your old photos individually on a plain background – a wooden table or (clean!) floor works well – and use your camera to take a photo…of a photo, ensuring you crop as near as possible to the original photo. Top tip: Use the manual setting on your camera to ensure you’re getting the best focus for each photo – this will mean you have a high quality image to upload to PhotoBox before creating your canvas Step 2: Upload your ‘photos of photos’ to a new PhotoBox album, alongside your recent digital shots – you can even upload from Instagram or Facebook if you like. Select the size of collage canvas that works best for you’ve – we’ve gone with a 16” x 16” square canvas, as we thought it suited the photos we had the best. Step 3: Using the PhotoBox studio, you’ve got the option to choose from lots of different layouts for your canvas. You can click on one of the pre-designed options, or even use the aperture button to create a design that works best for the shape and size of the images you’ve chosen. Top Tip: If you do decide to create your own layout, use our red guidelines to make sure the images are spaced evenly on the canvas Top tip: Use our illustrations & text feature to add a little message to your Dad – a present & a card all in one! Make sure you check the quality of each photo before you save and order your canvas. Good quality photos will have a green smiley face next to them, average quality (which will still print out at an okay quality) will have an orange face, and low quality (red, unhappy face) will not print well. Once you’re happy with your layout and quality, you’re ready to order! Sit back & relax with a cup of tea and get ready to be crowned the best son / daughter / grandchild around – no need to thank us!

This Father’s Day, we want to turn the nations’ dads into works of art. Whether that’s a special photo on a mug, or their child’s favourite drawing saved forever. We challenged craft blogger, Maybush Studios & (v.cute) son, Theo, to see how they could turn Dad into a work of art this Father’s Day. Over to you, Clare… ”Ever since my Mum made me create my first homemade birthday card, I have had a bit of a thing about personalised gifts and I try and make them whenever possible. So when Photobox challenged my three year-old son Theo to use his artistic skills to create a Father’s Day gift, I thought it would be a really fun project. The idea was to get Theo to draw a portrait of his Daddy and to print that on one of the many gifts Photobox makes. When we put some time aside to sit down together, with a photo of Daddy as a guide and Mummy to give him a little bit of steering (“Draw a circle for Daddies face”) Theo managed to create a pretty good picture. Of course he is still a little impetuous with the felt-tip pens, so after he’d drawn his two masterpieces, I scanned them in to the computer and did a little bit of tidying up… mainly removing the red scarf that Daddy had decided to wear across his nose and the pencil guidelines I gave him for the size of the iPad cover we were aiming for. Then we uploaded the pictures and added some text overlay. We chose folding iPad cover which fitted with Daddy’s existing iPad back and an iPhone case. Apparently Daddy already gets sympathetic looks on the train as the back of his iPad is covered in stickers, so we thought embellishing the front would really complete the look! A few days later our creations arrived… Theo and I thought they were great, but the real test was to see what Daddy thought of them!? Although Fathers Day isn’t until June 21st, we decided to give these to him early. Would they be a 5 minute novelty or would he actually like them as much as we did? I am pleased to say he loved them and has been using them ever since. We had such fun creating them and it’s lovely that Theo was able to be properly involved in making a gift for his Daddy. This might well be the beginning of an annual tradition. What can we personalise next?” Thanks, Clare & Theo! We can’t wait to try this idea for ourselves. What product would you use to turn Dad into a work of art? You can see more of Clare’s work & blog here or follow her on Twitter @Maybushstudio